This summer, Herrod, Pyne, Meyers and Thompson formed the new Defend Utah Values political action committee. Another member of the PAC's board is Lowell Nelson, former Utah County Republican Party treasurer and president of the new Utah Republican Liberty Caucus.

The possibility for division might get a test next spring, when the Utah County Republican Party holds elections for its leadership positions.

Thompson said he has declined to run for chairman of the county party but added, "We will be involved in that election."

The 1990s Utah Republican Assembly, led by Tom Draschil and Don Ruzicka, was considered arch-conservative by some GOP officeholders.

Draschil was arrested for trespassing in 1998 while passing out URA literature at the state Republican convention, but a judge dismissed the charges. Draschil said on his radio show that President Bush lied to the American people and should be impeached. He also ran a failed campaign against Cannon in 2002, saying he would yank the Violence Against Women Act, which he called "feminist pork," and stop co-ed basic training in the U.S. Armed Forces and oppose use of women in combat.

Ruzicka, whose wife is president of the conservative Utah Eagle Forum, called the movement "mainstream conservatism" and a "conservative uprising" and chafed when fellow Republicans described the Republican Assembly as too far to the right.

"They talk about us like we're the plague moving across the state," Ruzicka said in 1998, when it seemed the URA was poised to take over the Utah County Republican Party in 1999.

The national organization calls Republican assemblies "the Republican wing of the Republican Party."

In 1998, Ron Paul spoke at the first Utah Republican Assembly convention.

Ruzicka took credit that year for influencing candidacies at Republican conventions and primaries, but within a few short years, after Draschil moved away, the organization faded into the background.

Then last year, the southern Utah chapter of the Utah Republican Assembly helped organize a sidewalk demonstration in St. George to call for secure borders and the rejection of amnesty for illegal immigrants.

The URA's endorsement of Chaffetz created a connection back to the heyday of the group in 1998, when the URA and Eagle Forum backed Jeremy Friedbaum's improbable intraparty run against Cannon.

Friedbaum fared shockingly well at the Republican convention that year and forced Cannon to a primary. Cannon clobbered Friedbaum in the primary, but the embarrassment of being forced to a primary two years after winning back the Congressional seat from a Democrat spawned repeated efforts from the right to oust Cannon until Chaffetz succeeded this year.

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E-mail: twalch@desnews.com